


An Inevitable Decadence

by tenuous



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Content, Demisexual Jon, Demisexuality, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Season 4, Pre-Season 5, This is super mushy sorry, Trans Jon, themes of regret - love- and doing the right thing, virgin Jon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:34:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23134015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenuous/pseuds/tenuous
Summary: Thrust into an apocalypse of his own (accidental) creation, Jon is flooded with a newfound connection to the Fear Entity—but that's the least of his concerns.The world is in desperate need of mending, but all Jon can think about is how utterly he ruined his own life by not acting on his feelings for Martin during their time together in Daisy's safe house. And now it's too late.[Jon/Martin, canon-divergence. Takes place directly after season four. -- INDEFINITE HIATUS]
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 7
Kudos: 57





	An Inevitable Decadence

**Author's Note:**

> **Please note:**  
>  This fic contains asexual-spectrum Jon who IS NOT sex repulsed, but feels no sexual attraction except for certain people (demisexual). He is also written as a trans man here. Also I am not from Europe and am bad at knowing what terminology I need to google LOL.
> 
>  **DISCLAIMER:**  
>  This is an "Explicit" rated work of fiction that should only be read by adults who feel confident that they will not be negatively influenced or harmed by fictional content. It is NOT intended for educational purposes.

The window is autumn-cold beneath Jon’s fingers, the press of his face fogs the glass with a mixture of laughter and sob. Age collects in dust and grime around the edges of the pane—it does not lend enough visibility for the surge of blood through Jon’s veins that urges him to look, to See. 

He fumbles for the window latch and then makes a rough, heaving attempt to hoist the window open. It doesn’t budge. Instead, chipped paint crumbles from the frame and falls to the ground in a flurry at his feet. Maybe it’s for the best that the old thing is stuck—he’s in the second story bedroom of the safe house, and if he had managed to get the window open something tells him he would have climbed right through without a second thought. 

Instead, he remembers the balcony just to the left of the window. The moment between leaving the window and throwing open the door to the balcony is painful, stirring within him a mix of anxiety and impatience that churns his stomach. He needs to see more. To Know.

There’s a noise of protest from behind him. A voice. A plea. Jon barely registers it. Once outside, his face thrusts upwards like a beggar’s cupped, wanton hands as he hits the balcony’s bannister and grips it hard. 

The sky opens like soft, bruised eyelids around bulging orbs and twitching irises. Thousands of eyes surround one massive oculus, its lashes hanging long and low in the distance with the weight and texture of old, tangled cobwebs. Jon Knows immediately that this is both the Fear Entity and not the Fear Entity. It is a manifestation of itself for this reality to make sense of. Itself through the lense of the human psyche. 

For his benefit. For all their benefits.

There are no clouds in the sky, but it is almost a natural color, the dark gradients of a healing wound. Purples and sickly yellows and browns. The sky is hazy with vertical streaks, rain in the distance. Somehow, though there are no clouds to create it, the whole world is alight with a storm. Lightning strobes impossibly across the sky. A seismic crash and crackle of thunder makes Jon’s already shaking limbs seize with terror. 

(And wonder.)

The safe house is isolated, nothing but hills and dirt road and scarce trees for as far as he can see. Now the ground bulges with thick, fleshy roots. No, not roots—veins. Snaking in and out and up, disappearing into the sky like messy computer wiring. They glow and pulse with dark liquid surging through them. 

Another crash of thunder and the rain starts pouring. Fat, hot droplets that are almost painful when they hit Jon's upturned face, pelting him and soaking through his clothes. The eyes. They’re blinking the rain into existence. Crying. They’re crying.

Tears of joy. 

Jon’s fingers dig into the cold stone of the balcony’s banister. All of the eyes are trained on him. The Fears. The Beholding. The Entity. It has the whole world. Whatever reality used to be called Earth, the Entity reins over it all now. 

And for as far as Jon can see, the Entity’s attention is all on him. (He can feel it, feel it, no—Know it, he Knows it and it feels like something strong and suffocating and wonderous) Ha. His own tears streak hot down his face.

Daisy’s safe house is set back off the road on acres of land. No neighbors in sight. No way to tell how the world is reacting tangibly to any of this. Jon doesn’t need to see. He Sees. Knows. Feels it. Feels the elation rolling from above and below and all around him in waves. The Fears are gorging themselves on all of it, the world’s panic at this sudden shifting of reality. The Entity’s joy buzzes through Jon like he’s drinking it in, too. Fed by proxy, a pulsing, invisible umbilical cord.

The swell of glee in Jon’s own chest is too insistent, full to bursting. He’s crying. And laughing. The heavy saline raindrops fall around him like confetti.

There’s weight on his shoulders. Hands. Hands tugging gently, urging Jon to turn back around, to face away from the superb nightmarescape. 

Jon resists, eyes wide and locked greedily on the once-green landscape darkened by the storm above. A low fog that sweeps in lazy tendrils across the fields. 

The ringing in his ears is so loud.

The trees just beyond the house, previously barren with autumn, grow leaves anew. The colors shift right before his eyes, and then the leaves fall again to collect on the ground. They shrivel and decompose rapidly in a ring around the tree. The cycle continues again and again, as if he’s watching a high speed timelapse.

“ _Jon._ ” 

His name. In…

In… Martin’s voice?

Martin. It’s Martin’s hands on his shoulders. Martin whose voice is shaking.

Martin. Elias—no, Jonah asked Jon to take care of Martin.

He asked Jon to take care of Martin when this was all over.

But, oh. _Oh_ , it’s not over—the world is not over—it’s… it’s beginning.

“Jon, you’re scaring me,” Martin shouts over the rain, loud enough to penetrate Jon’s racing thoughts.

Vaguely, Jon is aware that Martin is taller than him, undoubtedly stronger. He could forcibly drag Jon back inside the house if he wanted. But Martin isn’t doing that. His hands on Jon’s shoulders urge him, ask him, _beg_ him to come inside—to turn away from the world’s metamorphosis. But they don’t force.

“I can feel it, the Entity everywhere, it’s elated.” Jon’s laughing, sobbing, overwhelmed. “I’m so—it’s so happy, Martin.”

“ _Jon!_ ” Martin scolds. “Whatever you’re on about, it needs to stop right this instant.”

“Don’t you see, Martin? It’s, it’s—”

“Of course I see it!” Martin snaps. “ _I_ was _out there_ when it, when it started!”

When it started.

That… something about that sends a pang of alarm through the overwhelming shudders of elation wracking Jon’s body.

Martin. He was out there, taking a walk on the dirt roads below. The fog, the veins like roots, the sky sparking and watchful.

Martin, he—

Jon rips his eyes away from the World and lets Martin spin him around to face him. 

Jon’s wide, sore eyes fix on Martin’s face, sticking there, unable to look away as much as he wants to, his gaze as adheased as it was to the sky.

Martin’s large, round glasses are streaked with rain. Behind the dripping lenses are terrified brown eyes. His mouth downturned and quivering.

“I—I see you, Martin,” Jon breathes, fingers numb and trembling as he reaches out as he did in the Lonely, reaches for Martin. Only this time he’s the one severed from reality. He’s the one under the Entity’s spell. He stops short.

The world is ending. (Beginning.) The world is ending (beginning) and Jon can feel a swell of sated pleasure welling inside him. He does not deserve to reach out to Martin, just as he didn't deserve to reach out to him in the Lonely, either.

Jon had been horrible to Martin—he hadn’t appreciated his kind and well-intended assistant from the beginning. And even when he did notice what a genuinely good person Martin was, he didn’t process that fact well. He regarded Martin with suspicion, held him at arm’s length. It simply didn’t compute, why Martin would want to waste his time on a sour grump like him. Certainly he must have had ulterior motives.

It wasn’t until Jon awoke from his coma and Martin had already put so much distance between them that… that he missed him. He missed Martin dearly. Things weren’t… right with him gone.

Jon had been an awful boss and an even worse friend.

He hadn’t deserved to put his hands on Martin’s face in the fog and coax him back to reality. He hadn’t deserved to put an arm around Martin and lead him out of the Lonely, pulled against his side like he could possibly protect Martin with his own much smaller stature. He didn’t deserve to touch Martin—but he had, anyway.

This time he can’t. 

Jon’s hands hover awkwardly between their bodies. He feels like the evidence of his sin must be all over him—the sweet ripe juices of the World’s fear leaking from his mouth. A vampire after a feeding.

Martin’s warm, thick hands envelop his. Easily. As if there was never a question of Jon’s worthiness in his mind.

Jon could weep. He does weep.

There’s a question in Martin’s expression, though. Jon can See it. A quiet, fearful, _what did you do?_

Jon did what was in his nature to do. He read the statement, just as Jonah knew he would. God, Jonah.

“What about Jonah?” Martin asks, loud over the rain.

Jon must have been muttering his thoughts aloud.

Martin doesn’t wait for an answer, instead tugging Jon with him as he walks backwards through the door, leading Jon back inside. Jon follows him like he’s a ray of light through a cathedral window.

“Jonah. He, he planted a statement. The ones Basira sent—supposedly sent. I couldn't stop reading. I did this, I did this, it was me.”

Martin releases one of Jon’s hands to shove the balcony door closed behind them. Jon almost collapses without the warmth of Martin’s flesh tethering him to reality. But Martin’s hand is back on his in a flash, and Jon manages to keep his knees from buckling. Mostly.

“It was me, Martin. I did this, I, I, I—”

“Don’t say that,” Martin snaps, harsh enough to cease Jon’s stammering. “I know you, you’ve never wanted any of this. None of us did.”

“Elias—”

“Jonah,” Martin corrects. “Of course I don’t mean him. Of course he wanted this, of course it’s his doing.”

Somehow, Martin’s voice is calm and steady despite the slight tremble of his lower lip. He’s doing so much to keep himself from falling apart at the seams. Jon marvels at his strength.

“But if only I could have stopped reading, if only I had known—”

There’s a snort of disgusted amusement from Martin. “Yeah, if only we had figured out Jonah’s plan ahead of time, as if Jonah Magnus doesn’t have hundreds of years of plotting and scheming on us.”

The response Jon conjures is a small, pathetic noise of protest.

“Stop it,” Martin demands. “I won’t hear it. None of this was your doing, none of this was what you wanted.”

“But—”

“I said _stop it, Jon._ ” 

Somehow the firmness of Martin’s voice further smothers the residue of the Entity’s elation inside Jon’s chest. Jon feels suddenly, queasily thrust back into reality. He’s suddenly himself again, and not… himself in an infinite feedback loop with the Entity.

Jon stumbles and Martin catches him, tall and solid—his chest soft and warm even through his rain soaked clothes.

And. Oh. _Oh._

Jon’s body is suddenly alight with a buzz of comfort that the Entity’s feral elation could never compare to. This feeling, this overwhelming sense of safety as Martin shifts and pulls Jon against him harder, enveloping him in a fierce embrace… it’s a feeling that fits inside him so naturally. 

A mixture of emotions that share a compatibility with his very human body. A compatibility that the emotions the Entity feeds him could never match, no matter how much curiosity and overjoy it pumps into him. 

Relief floods through Jon’s whole being like a broken dam. He allows himself this. All he can do is twist his fingers in Martin’s shirt and hold on for dear life. He presses his face against Martin’s chest with enough force to almost appease his desire to crawl beneath Martin’s ribcage and hide himself there. 

The thrum of Martin’s heart is tangible against Jon’s face. The sigh that escapes Jon is part whine, part dry sob. Martin holds him impossibly tighter.

Oh, how Jon has yearned for this affirmation of contact with Martin. The _knowing_ that comes with an accepted touch. Trust passing from one to the other like an heirloom. Reaching out and having the other reach back. 

How long has he been wanting this? Too long, if he’s being brutally honest with himself. He’s not sure he wants to pinpoint the exact moment he really _saw_ Martin. Valued him. Certainly much longer than he's been treating Martin like something valuable. And.

And that’s why Jon doesn’t deserve this, more than anything. Ha. One would think being some sort of harbinger of the apocalypse would disqualify him from deserving Martin’s embrace—but no, the reason is much more human than that. 

Jon is an ass. 

A self-sacrificing capital-A ass who let go of Martin as soon as they emerged safely from the Lonely. He had uncoiled his arm from around Martin despite Martin’s flinch of protest, the devastation crumpling his features. What was worse was how quickly the devastation shifted into acceptance—into, _of course Jon doesn’t feel the same way._

But Peter Lukas was right—his words unsettlingly perceptive. How well do they really know each other beyond the walls of the institute? It’s not right, to take advantage of Martin’s vulnerability. His loneliness. 

Martin didn’t deserve to have Jon’s barely self-actualized feelings thrust upon him at his most vulnerable. 

So Jon has kept his distance. And Martin certainly hasn't tried to initiate any intimate contact. 

They had kept an amicable distance while they made stops at their respective flats together to pack quick travel bags. 

They didn’t hold hands on the train ride to Scotland. Though the urge to reach out and grab Martin’s hand and press close to his side was a constant ringing in Jon’s ears, a persistent distracted impulse queued in his brain no matter how many times he tried to shove it away. 

In the end, Jon never worked up the nerve to break his own rule about not taking advantage of Martin’s vulnerability. 

They stayed close all the way to Daisy’s safe house, never leaving each other’s sight. And things were kept… professional. Thighs not touching. Arms not brushing as they walked. Even their shoulders couldn’t bump in the crowd of the train station without a profuse apology from one or both of them.

Martin didn’t touch him. This fact gripped Jon’s attention sharply. He could not keep his thoughts off of how often Martin did not touch him. Or look at him. Or dote on him. 

It was pointed on Martin’s part, Jon is sure of that.

When they got to the safe house there was only one bed—because of course there was only one bed. Twin sized, too, with a duvet small enough to match. There was however, a couch in the downstairs living area. Jon insisted that Martin take the bed, because (and he even admitted this), it was his turn, god damn it, to make sure Martin had nice things. 

Lord knows Martin went to almost annoyingly great lengths to make sure Jon was always comfortable in the archive, brewing his tea and bringing him lunch and changing the recorder batteries (before they stopped needing batteries at all). Not to mention all the nights Jon would have lost himself in statements, had it not been for Martin pestering him to go home and get some rest.

Martin has been looking out for Jon so much longer than Jon has noticed.

Jon’s gutted with shame.

The weeks they spent in the safe house were… nice. His anxiety over Martin’s emotional distance waned as they spent time together. As they talked and laughed and bonded over the fluffy beasts that were Scotland’s highland cows.

And they fell into a sort of friendly rhythm. For three weeks Jon was happy. Happier and more at ease than he can ever remember being since…

Well.

Since his grandmother showed up from the charity shop with _A Guest for Mr. Spider_.

They developed a strange sense of normalcy between them. A feat, considering that they were technically in hiding from an eldritch being and the violence of its avatars.

Still, during those weeks, they did not touch, or talk about the way they looked at each other in the Lonely. The way they both undeniably must have felt.

Jon does not know what it is like to thread his fingers through Martin’s fingers.

(And now he will never know.)

He does not know what it is like to stand on the tips of his toes and press a kiss to Martin's jaw.

(And now he will never know.)

He does not know what would have happened during those weeks if he had listened to his own instincts and gotten off the couch after they had both said goodnight. If he had walked up the stairs and knocked on Martin’s door. And. Maybe fell into his arms. Like this. Like now.

Except Jon is sobbing against Martin’s chest.

And the world is ending. Has ended. (Begun.)

And. Jon had three perfect weeks before this to learn what the rise and fall of Martin's breath felt like against his face.

But he is a man rife with inaction. And for those three weeks he did nothing of the sort.

He squandered any chance he had at knowing Martin on a much deeper, visceral level.

Now Jon is sobbing and Martin’s arms are so warm and strong and better than he could have ever imagined—but his mind keeps rubber-banding back to the way Martin’s hands fidgeted at his sides as they walked together along the fence of a cattle field. How Jon’s own hands clasped behind his back as if keeping temptation at bay—temptation to reach out and guide Martin by a hand on his upper back whenever his hapless friend got distracted by landscape and nearly wandered off completely. 

The world has ended, and there are so many opportunities Jon didn’t take. 

He can’t say he has a single regret in his life's entirety that weighs on him harder than those of the past few weeks with Martin.

He. He needs a do-over. He needs. To go back, to do it all again and to ask Martin what he wants instead of deciding what was best for him. God. He. He really fucked it all up, didn’t he?

And now it’s too late.

Jon shifts his face against Martin’s chest to look up at Martin, only to find Martin looking down at him. Their faces are close, too close—the heat of Martin’s breath fans across Jon’s cheeks. He can feel the prickle gooseflesh raise in his arms.

Jon sucks in a loud, ragged breath and pulls away. Away, away, away, he needs to get away. 

He pulls away from Martin because… because he placed the intimacy embargo on them himself, didn’t he? Jon couldn’t bear to touch Martin when he woke up every morning for three weeks in the safe house and the world was the most beautiful he had ever seen it. 

If Jon was too ashamed to give himself to Martin then, surely there is no hope now.

These past few weeks with Martin have been the best days (hours, minutes) of Jon’s life, he thinks. He feels sick. 

Whatever could have been between them... Jon was too slow to act on it. It’s gone now. 

The world had ended, or been birthed newly into some hellscape in which their only future is struggling impossibly to fix the mess he’s made. 

(The mess it has surely made of him.)

He’s failed Martin and himself in every way imaginable and even rescuing Martin from the Lonely was too little too late, he should have never let it get to that point in the first place. Should have never let Martin sacrifice himself like an innocent into a volcano.

Martin resists, a confused grunt escaping his lips. Jon jerks away more insistently, until Martin releases him. Jon stumbles backwards, slamming against the balcony door hard enough to rattle it.

“Jon—”

“No,” Jon bites back, an order. A command. No. _No._ He’s not letting Martin waste another word on him. Shaking his head and running a hand through his wet hair, Jon repeats, “No,” again, softer this time, before walking away. 

He goes straight to the bathroom. 

There’s a mirror above the sink. Jon leans close to it, staring frantically into his own bloodshot eyes. Still dark brown. Skin still marred with pockmarks from where Prentiss’ worms had to be pried from his pores. 

With a shaky breath, Jon pushes and pulls at the skin of his face, checking for damage, for growths, for some sign that he is no longer human. Some sign that he truly did have the power to bring the apocalypse upon them all.

Why is the bathroom so quiet? The creaky old house? Why has the taint of the Entity not penetrated the walls of Daisy’s safe house? The house hasn’t changed as far as he can tell. Like only the outside is awful.

Maybe the Entity needs its victims to have safe places to fear for their lives. Ha. Haha, that almost makes sense. A moment for their flight response to ebb so that they can, in their calmness, truly let the reality of their situation sink in. 

True terror needs safety, otherwise it’s just pure adrenaline.

A deep chuckle bubbles its way out of Jon’s throat at the observation. In the mirror, the sharp canines revealed in his grin are entirely human, blunt and omnivore like the rest of his teeth. Still, he sticks his fingers in his mouth to feel, to make certain.

There’s a knock on the doorframe—Jon left the bathroom door wide open, and now Martin is standing there, arms crossed and brow knit. He looks more annoyed than frightened.

Good. Let him see. Let him see Jon’s feeble attempt to grasp his slippery sanity as it oozes inevitably through his fingers like egg yolk.

Let Martin see what a monster he’s become. He’s sure there must be evidence of it somewhere. There has to be. Something physical and irrefutable. Something wrong in the same way some of the other avatars are wrong. A too-long limb or too many bones. There must be something, anything, that makes him as inhuman as he feels.

Jon struggles out of his soaking sweater and tosses it to the floor. He spins wildly in front of the mirror, lifting his arms and checking his body for the vaguest hint of a change. A difference. Nothing. Nothing, why is there nothing? 

Nothing, nothing, nothing. Just his dark skin, body hair and raised scars. Scars Jonah orchestrated. Collected upon him. His body is a scrapbook, cluttered and well used. And he’s sure Jonah will come for him one day, to keep him stowed away like prized memorabilia.

There are scars of Jon’s own choosing, too, and it’s almost comforting to see them, the symmetry of the curves framing the bottom of his chest. Surgery scars that helped rid him of that awful, incessant ache of dysphoria all those years ago. 

Martin has already seen these twin scars. Jon had wrestled out of his shirt in the archive when it had been covered in Prentiss’ worms. He’d writhed on the ground half-naked while Sasha dug the worms out of his skin with a corkscrew. 

So Jon harbors no discomfort in Martin bearing witness to his body again. It’s the telling that’s difficult for Jon. Awkward. The intimacy of revealing that he used to despise his body, when now the truth is that he’s felt glowingly comfortable in it for well over a decade. It’s a part of his life that is a deep struggle long passed, one he’d rather keep to himself simply to avoid a conversation he doesn’t know how to have with other people.

In a way he’s thankful for these scars in particular, doing the telling for him. 

Martin didn’t question the scars then, and he doesn’t now. Just as he didn’t ask about the clear vial of testosterone and unused needles he watched Jon pack as they prepared for their train ride to Edinburgh towards Daisy's safe house.

“What _exactly_ is it that you are doing, Jon?” Martin asks slowly, exasperation held tautly at bay. Like a mother who just found her child drawing on the wall in crayons.

“I’m, I’m checking for changes. This is my fault, I told you, _I did this_. Everything you saw out there—it’s me. Something’s changed, I’ve changed, I must have.”

Martin grunts, remarkably unconvinced. “You look like the same Jonathan Sims to me.”

“I can’t be me anymore, Martin, not after this,” Jon says, frantically. It doesn’t sound sane, he’s aware, oh _he is aware_. Nothing about this is sane. “Just, just go away Martin. It isn’t safe for you here. With me. I’m not me anymore. I’m not. I can’t be. I’m gone and the world is gone and I never even gave myself a chance to… to…”

“I’m not going anywhere, Jon.” Martin’s stern confidence is like a lifeline tossed to Jon’s drowning form. Jon can’t take it. He can’t grab on to anything amidst all his flailing panic. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“Then stay!” Jon snaps, enough snarl in the words to even surprise himself. “Stay and witness what I’ve become.” 

Jon rips open the fly on his jeans and stomps out of them, frantically combing over his legs with his fingers, searching, searching for anything, anything amiss—something must be amiss. He’s a monster, now. Has been. A monster, a monster, a monster. 

“You’re not a monster, Jon!” Martin shouts, exasperation so strong even Jon registers the eye-roll in his voice. “Put your bloody clothes back on!”

Jon ignores him, managing to use whatever scrap of sanity he has left to peel the hem of his knickers back and simply peer inside, instead of shedding them completely.

Nothing has changed. No matter how much he spins in the mirror or tugs at his face.

“Nothing’s changed. I’m, I’m just myself. I did this,” Jon’s voice cracks and he allows the buckle of his knees to lead him to the floor, clutching the sink. “I’m just myself. I’m myself. A monster. All along. I knew, I knew it—but I didn't think… I didn’t think I was capable of… of something like this.”

“Jonah did this,” Martin asserts. A reiteration. He’s already assured Jon that this was Jonah’s doing. He could say it a thousand more times and it wouldn’t be enough.

The air won’t seem to flow right, Jon’s breath snags in his lungs. He’s gasping for breath. At first he thinks it’s a trick of the Entity, but no—no, he’s just hyperventilating.

He needs to calm down. For his own sake. For Martin’s. He bows his head and sobs.

Martin steps closer. Sighs. Asks, “Can I touch you? Hold you?”

It’s not the reprimand Jon expects. Not the scolding he deserves. His breath hitches. Even his shoulders, wracking with sobs, tense and freeze.

He wants to say yes. 

He can’t say yes. 

Martin… Martin needs to stay away from him.

“Say yes,” Martin commands—no, advises. “For God’s sake, Jon, if there’s any part of you that needs a hug right now, then just say yes.”

Jon can’t move. Can’t breathe. His thoughts are too fast for his mind to be any use at all. Something from a statement pops unbidden into his head: _the angles cut me when I try to think._

“I’m not leaving you no matter what you say.” Martin’s voice is hard with frustration, but it breaks with the stubborn truth of it when he says, “You’re stuck with me, Jon. I mean it.”

Jon manages to look at Martin through his fingers, through the spilled mess of his own dark, greying hair. 

“You have been all this time,” Martin continues, utterly miffed. “Stuck with me, I mean. I’m not leaving you. But if you really don’t want it from me, then I’ll spare you my own selfish need to wrap you in my arms and pretend for one moment that I can possibly protect you.”

The prickle behind Jon’s eyes has the hot sting of popping oil. He holds the tears back for all of one second before his cheeks are soaked again. Steaked like Martin’s glasses in the rain. At least his sobs are quiet this time.

“If you don’t want that from me, that’s okay,” Martin says, shakily now despite the obvious bitterness— there are tears in his voice and in his eyes but not on his cheeks, not yet. He’s so strong, stronger than Jon could ever hope to be. “If you want something else, _need_ something else, just, God, Jon, just tell me. _Please._ ”

Everything is too much. The words send Jon’s pulse surging, pounding too hard in frail veins. His ears ring with an inability to… to grasp exactly what Martin is saying, because he’s saying that… that he wants to hold him. Selfishly. For himself more than for Jon. And. And that…

Mechanically, Jon nods. And then nods again, eyes locked on Martin’s reddened ones, this time with certainty. 

Martin squints, forcing welled tears to fall. He swipes them away with his sleeve. “What?”

“Yes,” Jon gasps, forcing the truth out of himself, hushed and frightened. “Yes.”

“Yes… what?” Martin asks, and for a moment Jon thinks Martin is just being mean, but no, genuine confusion knits his brow and wrinkles his nose.

For the life of him, Martin can’t grasp that Jon is consenting to the aforementioned hug.

Ha. The world is ending beyond the safe house and Martin has a harder time believing that Jon wants his offered embrace.

That is. Such a… a Martin thing. A Jon thing.

When had they become something with laws of physics all their own?

“Martin,” Jon manages, sniffling, swiping away his tears. Somehow their own mutual tediousness has managed to calm whatever waters were roiling inside him before. He feels. Deflated. Embarrassed. Slower, somehow. The world is moving slower now. “I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for not holding you and refusing to let go, these past few weeks.”

God, what is he doing? Spilling his unregulated feelings for Martin, that’s what. When all Martin asked for was permission to comfort him. A friend. Yes. Jon is just a friend who has not been kind enough to warrant any sort of mutual feelings.

“O-oh,” Martin stutters, soft in a way that he has not been since he met Peter Lukas. “Oh. I—I’ve been thinking the same thing.” 

Jon opens his mouth and then closes it. It doesn’t make sense. What Martin said doesn’t make any sense at all.

Impossibly, Martin laughs—a small, shy thing that lightens something inside Jon’s chest. “It’s, it’s daft, ridiculous—but, ever since the world went all wonky, all I can think about is how much I hate myself for not, _I don’t know_ , talking to you about it, I guess. About us.”

“Us?”

“Well, _yeah_ , I’m not an idiot, Jon. I can tell that… something’s changed. That you…” He gestures. “Feel something. For me.”

Jon’s face is hot. The world outside is ending and he’s flushing hot with the embarrassment of being seen not by the Beholding, but by Martin Blackwood.

He’s lucky his skin is too dark to easily show a flush.

“I was just being a bit of a prat, I suppose,” Martin continues. “I wanted _you_ to be the one to say it. To swallow your pride and admit you actually felt something for your pathetic assistant who’s been crushing on you for years.”

Crushing on him.

Martin?

On him?

_Years?_

“But of course, Jonathan Sims voluntarily talking about his feelings? Like _that_ would ever happen. Hell, it looked like it took every ounce of your effort just to tell me you _missed_ me back when I was working for Peter.”

That. Yeah. 

Martin’s not wrong.

(Years?)

Martin snorts, amused and somehow not even a little bit bitter when he says, “You know, I even started to think these past few weeks, that the world would end before you ever took a moment to even _contemplate_ your own feelings in the privacy of your own head. I guess I was right.”

“No, I—I contemplated them. Contemplation definitely took place.” Jon lowers his voice and his gaze, says, barely above a whisper, “I thought about it too much, actually.”

Martin makes a small noise of acknowledgement, somewhere between a hum and a squeak and maybe a sigh. 

Jon swallows. His tongue is dry and heavy in his mouth. He can’t help it, he changes the subject. “You... You were—you were just nice to everyone. That was just who you are.”

“What?”

“You can’t have had a crush on me for years. No, not years. You just doted on everybody. You took care of everyone. Put everyone ahead of yourself. It—it didn’t mean anything.”

At that any sign of amusement or shyness drops from Martin’s face. He kneels on the ground in front of Jon and stares him down hard enough to make Jon shrink back. “Jon. Are you _really_ trying to tell me that you know more about my feelings for you than I do?”

“I—” Jon cuts himself off. Snaps his mouth closed. Martin has a point. A very good point that twists like a knife between his ribs. He’d been so cruel to Martin, back then. So dismissive. 

And all this time, Martin’s… been… been fond of him? Jon suspected that Martin developed feelings for him eventually, and Martin confirmed as much in the Lonely, but. Certainly those feelings didn’t develop _years_ ago.

“You know, for the longest time I used to think you knew,” Martin says, sighing. His smile is small and lopsided. “I thought you were putting on that whole _commanding boss voice_ thing you do just to watch me squirm—but, yeah, no, you were just completely oblivious to anything that wasn’t a statement, weren’t you?”

Jon replies, feeling timid under Martin’s gaze, “I… yeah, I suppose I was oblivious.”

Martin’s just crouching there, frowning at him. And somehow that feels like another personal failure added to the list of things Jonathan Sims has failed to get right.

“To be fair, it’s not like I have much…” Jon gestures, trying to conjure the right word, “... _experience_ with these things.”

Martin squints. “Experience with what? Recognizing social cues?”

Somehow, coming from Martin, that sounds like a genuine question rather than a criticism. 

Jon shrugs. “Yeah? I guess? You know I don’t date—”

“How would I know that?” Martin shoots.

Jon’s brow furrows. “Martin. You’ve known me for how many years now? Did it seem like I was dating anyone in my free time?”

“Yeah, no, it didn’t, but,” Martin’s face scrunches, gears all but visibly turning in his head. “But, I don’t know, I suppose I just assumed you were too caught up in the archives to have much of a love life?” 

Jon laughs, genuine amusement. “Martin, I have dated exactly one person in my life.” When Martin’s face slackens in further confusion, Jon adds, “Turns out I’m not much of a people person. Most others find me rather annoying.”

Martin opens his mouth, closes it again, opens, “But—”

“Even all of my friends at Oxford proved to be more like networking contacts than actual friends,” Jon blurts, wanting Martin to understand that this is just how things are. It’s fine, it’s okay. _He’s_ okay. Even transitioning was easier because with the exception of his grandmother, he didn’t exactly have anyone to come out to, no one to worry about disapproving. “I’ve sort of… always been on my own. Haven’t often minded, to be honest. Point is, it’s not a big deal, when it’s your whole life.”

Martin’s looking incensed by that, like he’s about to say something in Jon’s defense, “But—”

“No need to defend my honor, Martin.”

“But, Jon,” Martin finally exclaims in a rush of held breath, “You’re _extremely_ attractive.”

That.

That wasn’t the argument Jon was expecting.

At all.

He splutters.

It's not like he tries to be attractive, quite the contrary, actually. He doesn't bother getting his hair cut often and usually allows a day or two of stubble before shaving. He used to try to make himself presentable—professional—for work and university before that. But these days he values comfort and ease of dress over professionalism.

Attractive? No.

Not him.

Not a word he'd ever think to attribute to himself. He doesn't put in the effort required for it, even if he wasn't too lanky with an inclination for bad posture. And he can't remember a time he didn't look as tired as he felt.

So no. Martin is… mistaken. Or biased.

One of those, for sure.

“Sure, I get the whole not having many friends thing,” Martin continues. “I haven’t had many either, not when my life has mostly revolved around working and taking care of my mum. But… Jon. How have you not had people trying to date you left and right?”

Jon flounders, his face hot with the searing burn of embarrassment. “I—”

“Oh my God,” Martin says suddenly, realization dawning over his face. “If you did have people falling all over you, you didn’t know, did you? You were oblivious. Of course you were. Oh my God.”

A squirming, painfully shy sensation trills through Jon's body like butterfly wings. The thought that he may have had suiters, or even potential friends, trying to break through his own walls of stern professionalism and obliviousness… well. 

He spent the time from his coma scrambling to make up for his own prickly exterior, trying to open up and reach out to the people in his life who have been there. Basira. Daisy. Melanie. Georgie. 

...Martin.

It all felt like too little too late. He can’t confidently say any of them consider him a friend at this point, even though he’s re-written his own too-strict definition of _friend_ to include each and every one of them.

To think that perhaps he’d had the opportunity for real interpersonal connections his whole life, and just never accepted them unless said opportunities were shoved loud and clear into his face… he…

He really missed out on a lot, didn’t he? (And now it’s too late.) Would he have even ended up so guarded and alienated if it wasn’t for his early childhood exposure to that Jurgen Leitner book, and the experience it wrought? 

Jon scrubs both hands down his face and stares at Martin through his fingers. “I suppose I’ve never been very good at being a human being, have I?”

(Maybe it’s fitting that he’s a… he’s a monster now.)

Martin blinks, his features softening. “I think that’s part of what I liked so much about you.”

Despite himself, Jon smiles behind his fingers.

“Come here,” Martin gestures, opening his arms in invitation and shifting closer. 

So Jon accepts, falling into Martin’s arms on the cold bathroom floor. Smiling against the other man’s chest. 

“Oh,” Jon breathes. “You’re cold. And damp.”

“Yeah? Well you’re nice and warm,” Martin says slyly, knowing exactly what he’s doing when he coils his arms around Jon and squeezes.

“Christ,” Jon hisses through his teeth at Martin’s rain-damp clothes against his bare skin. “How are you not shivering right now?”

Martin sounds almost smug when he replies, “I have a lot of insulation.”

“Mn, so you do” Jon agrees, and nuzzles his body against Martin’s broad, cushy chest. “Almost comfortable enough to make me forget the world’s ending.”

That he ended it.

Martin snorts. “Kinda makes one wish they’d gouged their eyes out and ran away together when they had the chance.”

There’s enough humor in Martin’s voice that Jon can tell he doesn’t really mean that. Such drastic measures were never really an option. It’s not really a choice when it’s the _only_ choice. It’s not something Jon would have wanted for Martin, anyway.

“Wish I’d done it myself, to be honest. Could have prevented all of this,” Jon sighs. Before Martin can protest, Jon adds, “Why do you think it’s… normal in here? In the safe house, I mean? Why hasn’t anything tried to come and kill us?”

Martin hums. “Maybe whatever powers are here now are too busy to keep playing with the likes of us. I take it we’re old toys at this point.”

Jon almost laughs. “That’s a good point actually.”

“Who the hell cares, anyway?” Martin says suddenly. “Why should we care that the world’s ended?”

“What?”

“We’ve been through enough. Why do we have to deal with it? Why’s it always us?”

Jon sighs. Closes his eyes and listens to the strong thud of Martin’s heart. He knows Martin’s just venting. “You don’t mean that,” he says quietly.

“Don’t mean what?” Martin challenges.

“That you don’t care that the world’s ended.”

“Well, maybe I don’t want to care. Maybe I’m sick of caring.”

“What do you mean?”

Martin pulls away slightly to get a look at Jon’s face. He’s flustered with the urgency to express himself when he says, “It’s just all too much, you know? Too much for any of us. We’ve been in over our heads all this time. It’s just not right, to expect ourselves to be able to stop forces we can’t even comprehend. Forces so much bigger than all of us. And still, after what happened to Sasha, and Tim, and for God’s sake look at how many _scars_ you have, it’s ludicrous to hold us accountable for _any_ of this—”

“Martin,” Jon cuts in, lifting a hand to Martin’s jaw. “Breathe.”

Martin releases a tiny, disgruntled noise. 

Somewhere, distantly, Jon realizes how hypocritical he’s being by trying to soothe Martin’s frantic breath and racing thoughts, when he himself just had one hell of a breakdown. 

“Is it wrong?” Martin asks, defiant. There’s the slight edge of tears in his voice. The angry kind of tears that accompany a strong sense of injustice. “Is it really so wrong that, right now, I’d really very much like to barricade the doors and windows and stay in here with you?”

“Martin—”

“And just, I don’t know, pretend everything’s okay? At least until the food runs out.”

Jon doesn’t know how to respond to that level of temptation. His eyes flutter closed. Martin’s thumb is rubbing absently against the back of his neck. God. Martin has no idea what kind of gravitational force compounds his words. 

“It’s really hopeless, isn’t it?” Martin says into Jon’s silence. “Always has been.”

“Saving the world? Very likely, yes.”

“No, you and me. We never had a chance.”

Hot tears prickle behind Jon’s clenched eyelids. He’s surprised he has any tears left after earlier. He’s suddenly aware of just how exhausted his body is, utterly wrecked from too many fried nerves.

“Even if we had by some miracle gotten our feelings sorted before the world ended, we wouldn’t have had much of a relationship while worrying about saving the world and saving our own skin on top of it all.”

“Yeah,” Jon manages hoarsely.

Martin’s voice shakes when he says, “Let’s, let’s board up the windows. Barricade the doors. I bought enough food to last us a week. Let’s just, just pretend nothing’s changed? Please?”

Jon sucks in a shuddering breath. He hates himself so much. After every shame and regret… after every time he failed Martin… he has to fail him again. His heart feels full of lead. “I can’t do that, Martin.”

“I know,” Martin whispers, surprising Jon. “I know. Neither can I. Not for long. But we, we deserve to rest, don’t we? We deserve to not feel guilty for not saving the world every second.”

Jon worms his arms around Martin’s middle and squeezes. He can’t argue with any of that.

“I mean, besides—look at it out there. It’s out of our hands. I don’t even. I don’t even know how to begin to deal with it. Someone else can. Anyone else. Just. Let me have you here with me, for as long as we can stand it.”

The words send Jon’s heart beating into his throat. Martin has been here for Jon all this time, even when Jon refused to acknowledge it. He can’t fail Martin again. Can’t deny either of them their desire to take care of each other now above all else. Above their own safety. Above the world. 

Because Jon would be lying if he said he isn't more loyal to Martin than he is to the world.

“Okay,” Jon says. “Okay. Let's try.”

Trying is all they've ever been able to manage, anyway.


End file.
